http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/5365676.stm

Poor fellah.

Was about to post it myself. I hope the hospital has improved since my grandmother went there.

Hope he gets better soon.

I also hope he gets better soon - TV needs him!

I wonder if his whitened teeth survived? ;)

I hope the hospital has improved since my grandmother went there.Having worked there, I'm not massively optimistic about the LGI's ability to do anything very much about anything ever, but since his condition is now "stable" it's looking much better for him.

How many high profile BBC celebrities did you see treated during your time there? ;)

I didn't see anyone treated during my time there.

As a general thread update, in case anyone needs one, it seems like Hammond is doing very well. Sitting up and walking around a bit. Though I've not heard tell of any actual treatment he's recieved beyond monitoring and being given a bed, so who knows if the LGI's actually done anything to help. Half of medicine is knowing when to do nothing.

I was about an hour away from catching Clarkson and May in our local pub (it's opposite the LGI) on Thursday evening, so I hear. You just wouldn't believe the number of outside broadcast vans there are lined up around the place. I suspect they used that pub as much as anything because it's so dead nobody would bother them.

I was in the LGI for surgery 3 months ago to have some glands removed from my neck.

A "small incision, hidden in the natural folds of the neck" turned out to be a permanent 11cm scar that is by no means "hidden".

They kicked me out 2 days afterwards - still covered in blood and mess from the surgery - leaving me to catch a rush hour Leeds to Manchester Airport train followed by a bus to get home when the slightest movement of my neck was exruciating.

They also stiched it such that when the nurse at my local GP's took it out she had to pull at it with strength for about 10 minutes.

I don't remember much about the 2 days between surgery and discharge due to the anaesthetic, but Laura tells me they just left me in a bed and she had to tend to me during visits (some of which i remember), including cleaning what blood she could off me with water and tissues (which surely should be done by a nurse with sterile cleaning products, shortly after surgery), and helping me change clothing.

I still, to this day, do not know how many glands they actually removed, or if they left any in at all. Every doctor or nurse i have asked has given me a different answer.

Good luck, Richard Hammond.

I won't go into all the details but they did not care for my grandmother and effectively left her there to die.

That sounds like the worst hospital in a non-third-world-country I've ever heard of.

Oh, man, Liam. The giant scar is the worst part. :(

I have one acronym for you, Lex:

NHS

He's been airlifted to a hospital in Bristol: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5388296.stm

Was it a jet-powered helicopter?

That would be cool.

That sounds like the worst hospital in a non-third-world-country I've ever heard of.

Oh, man, Liam. The giant scar is the worst part. :(
It is a bit shocking. The whole organisation is just a complete mess. I was in the radiology department there, and everyone there seemed to spend an awful lot of time doing things that were clearly other people's jobs but wouldn't otherwise ever get done. The ideal solution, I think, would be to fire everyone, disband the NHS, and start afresh. But that seems a little impractical.
Was it a jet-powered helicopter?

That would be cool.
A jet powered helicopter is called an aeroplane, surely?


I have one acronym for you, Lex:

NHS
That's not an acronym :p

That's not an acronym :p

Depends how you pronounce it. http://www.nanacide.com/images/Emoticons/clint.gif

A jet powered helicopter is called an aeroplane, surely?
An aeroplane doesn't have rotary blades on the top and tail in order to keep it up and facing the right direction, respectively. A helicopter does.

If you take a helicopter and attach jets, how it is an aeroplane? It has no wings, can hover, can turn on the spot, can move vertically without travelling horizontally.

That's not an acronym :p
It stands for National Health Service. You obviously don't know what an acronym is.

You've clearly not thought any of this through.

It stands for National Health Service. You obviously don't know what an acronym is.

It's an initialism, actually. Acronyms are pronounced how they're 'spelled'. Like WHO. With initialisms you prnounce the individual letters. Like PHP.

An aeroplane doesn't have rotary blades on the top and tail in order to keep it up and facing the right direction, respectively.
Modern ones don't, no. Old ones had propellors. The principle seems to be much the same, but with two big stationary blades added on for lift.

Meh, I don't understand how helicopters work anyway.

If you take a helicopter and attach jets, how it is an aeroplane? It has no wings, can hover, can turn on the spot, can move vertically without travelling horizontally.
A Harrier can do that.

I know, I know, I'm just being facetious now.

That's what the Americans will tell you; I've been taught different.

I'd like proof that I'm wrong, please.

Proof? Please don't imagine I've thought this through. I'm just saying things. I'd be just as happy to learn something about aviation as to prove you wrong.

Modern ones don't, no. Old ones had propellors. The principle seems to be much the same, but with two big stationary blades added on for lift.

Are you stupid? I specified that the blades are on the top and tail. Show me an aeroplane with one large rotary blade on the top and one small one on the tail and I will show you a helicopter.


A Harrier can do that.

I know, I know, I'm just being facetious now.

Since when do Harriers have no wings?

I'm double-posting just for you, Andrew.

Helicopters work roughly as follows:

The top rotary blades create a downward force, pushing the helipcopter up. Of course, once the helicopter has left the ground the spinning force of the blades should cause the helicopter itself to spin, too.

This is counteracted by having a smaller rotary blade on the tail, which create a counteractive sideways force to keep the helicopter facing forward.

There's not a single plane in existence which uses the method of flight. That's why helicopters aren't called planes and vice-versa.

I understand that much. But that doesn't explain how they go forwards.

Unless they have a jet engine, of course, but I don't think they do. I feel sure someone would have mentioned that. And it just seems like a helicopter with a jet engine would just be a much noisier, less efficient version of a plane -- you'd lose a lot of the maneuverability of a normal helicopter because the jet would take so long to spin down and whatever and you'd be left with something which from the pilot's point of view basically a plane with vertical take off.

But as I say, I don't really know much about either so please correctme.

I don't really care if it's realistic.

It would be cool.

Helicopters go forward by tilting.. Havn't you played BF? :p

Also, old planes didn't have jet engines, only propellers. That didn't make them helicopters. But I think you two have covered that already.

A jet powered helicopter is called an aeroplane, surely?


Vader basically answered this, but I'll just add a few more technical details, seeing as I'm doing a degree in aeronautical engineering.

A gas turbine engine (aka a jet engine) is used to drive the rotors via a complicated shaft, driven off the main gearbox. The jet of hot exhaust gases also act in the same way as a jet engine on your average aircraft and give the helicopter a bit of forward thrust (this is also combined by tilting the rotors, but I won't go into that :))


And Vader, the rotors on a helicopter are basically small wings that spin round, so essentially that follows the physics of flight :p

Choppers move forward by tilting the rotors, which changes the direction in which the lifting force acts. This, due to physics, causes it to move.

And Vader, the rotors on a helicopter are basically small wings that spin round, so essentially that follows the physics of flight :p

Yes but the difference between a propellor/impeller and wings is quite obvious.

I mean you can't say a speedboat/jet-ski has wings.

I mean you can't say a speedboat has wings
You can if it actualy does have wings.

True.

Oh well, I guess that means a jet-powered helicopter would not be cool.

Damn.

What does the flying bedsted count as then? No wings, but has jet engines and can hover...

Does it have propellors holding it up?

Nope. Only jet engines.

http://www.daviddarling.info/images/flying_bedstead.jpg

Then it is clearly a Flying Machine™.

I'm sure jet-assisted helicopters exist, but they're mostly used militarily.

Yeah, they're moving him to another hospital equipped to deal with the MRSA bug he now has.

I'm sure jet-assisted helicopters exist, but they're mostly used militarily.

Yeah, they're moving him to another hospital equipped to deal with the MRSA bug he now has.
Nope, lots of Civilian choppers are jet-assisted. That's what drives the shaft to drive the main and tail rotors, as I said earlier.

The air ambulances will be jet-powered as they need the speed.

And Vader, the rotors on a helicopter are basically small wings that spin round, so essentially that follows the physics of flight :p
I was going to say that earlier but I wasn't sure if they were aerofoils or just huge fan-blade affairs, so I kept my mouth shut.

But anything that flies follows "the physics of flight". Otherwise it won't fly.


Choppers move forward by tilting the rotors, which changes the direction in which the lifting force acts. This, due to physics, causes it to move.
Hmm. That makes sense.

I was going to say that earlier but I wasn't sure if they were aerofoils or just huge fan-blade affairs, so I kept my mouth shut.

Fan blades (on jet engines) are aerofoils - just slightly more curved ones.

But anything that flies follows "the physics of flight". Otherwise it won't fly.

Tell me about it. I've just spent the last two weeks building a glider with engine (which was removable) for my course, which turned out to be more of a propelled rock

I meant like a cross between a helicopter and a Harrier. I'm sure I saw something about it on TV.

The Harrier directs the exhaust from its jet engines downwards, giving it vertical takeoff. Naturally, it's more complicated than that though :D

They're starting to film the next series of Top Gear: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5409608.stm

I believe that a helicopter with jets attached is an ornithopter of some sort.

Ornithopters are in Dune, btw.

I don't think Ornithopters had jets.

I don't think Ornithopters had jets.
I don't think so either (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithopter)

.The ornithopter (called "'Thopter") is familiar to readers of Frank Herbert as the primary means of on-planet travel by the wealthy inhabitants of the Dune universe. This is a theme also carried into the Dune computer games: Dune, Dune II, Dune 2000, Emperor: Battle for Dune, and Frank Herbert's Dune. Oddly, in neither the Dune movie nor the SciFi channel TV miniseries were the 'thopters depicted with flapping wings. The 'thopters in the original movie didn't even have wings at all. The 'Dune Encyclopedia' entry on the 'thopter depicts them as being powered by giant, airbreathing, bivalve shelled animals. :)

Meh. Never mind then.

:D

This is the show you where talking about amiright?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2726731491546463330&q=top+gear+bf2